


accidental encounters of the galactic kind

by suchviolentdelights



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, and navigate this whole soulmates trope, my babies are damaged things, who meet earlier in life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2018-10-19 00:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10628118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchviolentdelights/pseuds/suchviolentdelights
Summary: "Together?" Her heart is picking up speed, for whatever reason. "What are you saying?"He gives her a resigned look. "I've heard people use the term soulmates. And then others say it's the galaxy giving a suggestion--"The sound that escapes her is something between scoffing and choking. "You can't be serious."---in which jyn accidentally, fatefully, crosses paths with cassian several times throughout the galaxy and tries to figure out the marks on her fingers. a soulmate fic.





	1. Chapter 1

**i. ryloth**

 

Her blaster takes aim straight at his heart. Dark hair and dark eyes with too much youth and not enough fear in them, which annoys Jyn. She steps forward menacingly, an effective measure, despite her age of fifteen standard years.

“Who are you?”

The boy's jaw tenses in response to her growl.

“I would ask you the exact same.” He's tall and his Basic is accented with lilts and flows she doesn't recognize. Judging by that, his ratty clothes, and the fire in his gaze, she is almost certain he isn't Imperial. And it's too soon after the battle for scavengers or smugglers.

But guessing is for amateurs and people who die. Jyn is neither.

"If you don't answer in five seconds, I'm going to shoot your other leg."

He waits four. Jyn knows it's on purpose.

"You know who I am. We're on the same side."

Her teeth grind. It's not a good enough answer. She takes another step, close enough to threaten, but far enough that he can't reach forward without risk.

"Who are you with?"

She can see him hesitating, eyes flickering from her face to her hands to the blaster, his blaster, that lies beside her right foot. She tries a different tactic.

"I'm still going to shoot you if you don't answer. Then your men will waste resources trying to heal you when they could be using it on others. And then you bring us both down, don't you? Seeing as we're on the same side."

She says that last part with an involuntary snarl.

"Who says they'd try to keep me alive?"

He says it casually, accepting and genuinely confused, and it throws her off-kilter, adding confusion to her anger and making her blaster hand waver the tiniest bit.

The boy sees. Exhales. Saves her with quiet but clear words.

"The Fest rebel cell."

Another Outer Rim planet, ice its only notable feature. So that’s who they supported as reinforcements when her crew arrived at the village. She hadn’t had much time to find out before Ormuz kicked her out of their makeshift camp after the battle with orders to scout and scavenge.

Her thoughts distract her just long enough that he is able to wrench her own weapon from her hands and push her to the floor. She underestimated not only his speed and strength but his pain tolerance. He looks at her with eyes as cold as his supposed home planet, as he points the blaster at her chest, an ironic mimicry of their earlier positions.

"Now who are you?"

Her anger resurges tenfold. She spits at his feet and makes for his injured leg, which he only just misses. Blood colors only the outer thigh section of his pant, but he limps when he steps back.

She meets his eyes ferociously. "Didn't they tell you who your reinforcements were?"

"You're with Saw Gerrera?"

"The one and only. Give me my damn blaster and maybe that way I'll take you to his medic."

"I don't need his medic."

"The hell you don’t. Your people—what's left of them—are with mine, recovering to the south. I’m to return soon.” Unspoken between them is both a threat and an invitation. _If I don’t come back, they’ll come for you. Come with me._

As the boy deliberates, Jyn slowly makes for his blaster that lies on the floor a few feet to her right. She hears him tense in response, feels his eyes and her own weapon tracking her, but she lets it go. Her hand purposefully grabs the barrel of his blaster and raises it towards him, handle-first.

A peace offering, no. She’s unfamiliar with the concept of peace. More like an agreement not to kill each other. A distorted shadow of trust. He’s more like her than she wants to admit, and she knows he sees it too. They can't die today. They won’t. They’re too young, with too much fight in them.

After a prolonged staredown, the boy snatches his blaster back and tosses Jyn hers. Her head lifts to find his arm extended towards her, his palm face-up. She ignores the urge to spit in it, forces herself not to think too much before she takes his hand, which is warm and grows increasingly hotter the longer she holds on.

He pulls her up and suddenly, it’s too hot. As scorching as a blaster bolt, and the heat spikes through her arm and pounds through her head before they both jerk their hands away, Jyn barely regaining her balance. They stare at each other warily, the heat cooling, the pain ebbing, before the boy breaks and shakes his head. “I hate this damn planet.”

She latches onto that explanation, lacking both time and patience for anything else, grabbing the comlink and satchel she had stupidly left in the dwelling's kitchen. She turns around to find the boy lurking in the doorway, eyes hard and alight with questions. ”You better keep up if you wanna leave that badly,” she says as she heads for the door.

 

* * *

 

“Care to share a name?” He asks sometime later.

She glances sideways, unimpressed, and returns to scanning the foliage. They are mere metres away. “Kriahl.”

He lets out an exhale she thinks might be a snort.

“Your turn,” she snaps.

“Wex,” he says easily, his eyes meeting hers briefly before spotting the cave.

 _Liar_ , she thinks. She is proven right not once but twice: at the entrance, a guard she doesn’t recognize bearing official Alliance insignia addresses him as Lieutenant, and while he’s applying bacta to his leg, she hears another voice, prettier and softer, call, “Cassian!” His head lifts almost involuntarily, and his eyes swivel to Jyn’s before he starts conversing with the female officer.

Maia addresses her by name—“Jalen”—as she is packing her bag, and she knows he’s within earshot. And as Saw squeezes her shoulder during their debrief, she feels his eyes on her back. When she turns around, she waits a beat before meeting his gaze, and when the Partisans leave Ryloth that same day, amidst whispers and glares, she does not look back.

 

* * *

 

She discovers a mark on the side of her left-hand ring finger two nights later, sleepless on Gorse. It’s white and raised and disappears at certain angles, a curved teardrop with a black circle towards the bottom. She repeatedly forgets to ask Saw about it amidst the endless campaigns, the blaster burns, the bruises—formally breaking from the Alliance causes all sorts of rifts within their ranks and the last thing on her mind is some weird, stupid scar-thing.

Months later, he hands her a blaster and some rations, directs her to a bunker and never comes back, while the question she never got to ask resurfaces in her pain-riddled storm of a brain, leaving an acute phantom bitterness on her tongue. She'll figure it out, eventually. Completely on her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soo this is my first ever published fic and i'm bracing for impact!! comments/questions/kudoses are greatly appreciated :)


	2. Chapter 2

**ii. tattooine**

 

"Yeah, they're called Force bonds."

Jyn sits to the left of the two humanoids, tracing a finger over her shot glass and catching wisps of their conversation. She's never heard of Force bonds before, but from what she can piece together of the story, apparently they linked together two beings called Fairren and Pax, resulting in widespread outrage within Hanna City. Something about a class divide, and she shakes her head at this. Damn Core Worlders.

“Doesn’t Pax have Imperial ties? I’m pretty sure Fairren’s father is still part of the Rebellion.”

“That's damn unfortunate." The man’s voice lowers to a whisper. "How did they even know? And the Force? Seriously?”

“No, listen, I've heard of them, but only through whispers--apparently they rarely happen and pairs have matching marks, somewhere on their body.”

This one makes her pause. Instinctively, she rubs her ring finger. 

“That's the strangest thing.” 

“Isn’t it? Even stranger than the time Eldra found that random holochip…”

Jyn returns to her empty drink, racking her memory for any mention of Force bonds and eventually coming up empty. As consolation, she orders another shot, ignoring the bartender’s reproachful stare. That counts four.

By her fifth, the gossipers have left, leaving her nothing else to do but try to ignore the shaking of her left leg, the itch of her knuckles. Weird bonds are interesting and all, but it has been weeks since her last fight. The energy’s been building since she landed in Tattooine, the atmosphere all too reminiscent of her first venture with the Partisans.

The alcohol licks flames down her throat and into her stomach, only adding to the chaos. Rum was a bad idea.

Then she hears the fight ring outside.

By the time her mind catches up with her body, Jyn has smacked the glass and a handful of coins down on the bar and walked out of the cantina. The liquor has begun its haze-inducing assault: she approaches the fight circle with extra, involuntary sways to her steps and it takes a few minutes longer to remember to wrap her scarf around her hair. Towards the back of her mind, she knows that this is a worse idea than the alcohol, but she also did just finish putting together an honestly beautiful set of scan docs. The birth of Tanith Ponta must be celebrated somehow, and not just with a few measly shots.

"Now that's a mean hook."

"Go get him, Chewie!"

"Blast! Come on, recover!"

The night air, warm and electric, feeds the crowd, the pumped fists and glinting eyes made all the more frenzied by the lack of troopers. It's a different kind of battlefield, but if nothing else, Jyn was made to fight. She eyes the Wookie and Gungan currently circling each other and places her bets on the towering furball; not long after, the beast gains the upper hand and starts clobbering his poor victim.

She gets ready to step in, cracking her knuckles and stretching her neck. It won't be an easy fight; in fact, the odds are galactically high that she'll get pummeled. She's slightly tipsy and well on her way to drunk. But there's fire in her veins and a truncheon on her leg and she's never fought a Wookie before so that's a new learning experience right there. She takes a step.

"Jalen."

The name hits her like a blaster shot to the gut, and suddenly she feels a hand—much too firm—on her shoulder.

Heat, blooming from under the assailant's fingers like typherflowers under moonlight. If her bloodstream was fire, this was the inside of a star, all-consuming from its source point and spreading rapidly through her entire being.

Literally any other day, and the stranger would be on the floor, struggling to breathe, but she's alcoholically incapacitated and burning and the utterance of her ( _Saw's_ ) name conjures memories that rise like ghosts intent on suffocation. The only thing she can do is flinch.

She turns around the exact moment the stranger lifts their hand, and as the heat dissipates through her body, she meets the dark eyes of a figure lifted straight from her cranial archives.

"Don't do it," he says, towering over her, dark brown waves falling over his forehead. _Cassian_. His name hits her like an asteroid, and suddenly, unsurprisingly, anger sparks her back to life.

( _Why are you here? How dare you tell me what to do? How dare you use my name? Saw's name?_  

" _Leave_." It tears itself out of her throat, a savage, undignified thing.

But he is unyielding."You won't survive it."

Jyn knows this. She knows this, she knows this, she knows this, but he holds her gaze until she is catapulted to a moment in a Ryloth village three years ago, a blaster in her hand, no trust in her eyes, and Saw's affection coursing through her veins until finally, like they knew they wouldn't die then, she understands. He's not letting her die now.

The crowd has pushed them close, and his fingers accidentally brush her wrist, leaving little pricks of heat like constellations. Jyn watches as Cassian's eyes flicker down, sees his eyebrows crease and uncrease. He pulls his arm away, quick and subtle.

_Does it burn him too?_

When his eyes return to hers, they are softer, noticeably more confused, affecting her similarly. 

"Come on," he says, with a muttered, out-of-place warmth that placates as much as surprises her. "Let's go."

And inexplicably, when he takes one step backward, then another and another, when he inevitably turns his back to her and barrels his way through the crowd, his arm slightly extended behind him as if to leave a trail for her, Jyn follows.

* * *

"So."

They sit across from each other on the narrow clay steps of a small Tattooinian complex, the archway providing welcome cover from the bustling nighttime activity and stormtroopers making rounds. The fight ring was broken up several minutes after they left, and if they both walked just a little faster after the fact, it went unacknowledged.

She can't not acknowledge this, though. They are too close in proximity, and he's looking at her from under his lashes, examining her with a cleverly disarmed, almost charming, face. She hates it.

After heaving a sigh, she crosses her arms in front of her chest and scowls. A covert glance reveals an older face than she remembers, the fire in his eyes still burning but a little tired, his jaw sprinkled black with stubble. She would never admit it aloud, but he's undeniably attractive. Which makes him dangerous.

"So," she parrots, cold and petulant. She's not starting this conversation. Not when he has the nerve to pop up out of nowhere and force a change of plans, wasting her credits by sobering her up. No way. 

Both of them remain still and stubbornly silent, examining the other. She wonders where he's hidden his blaster. If he's still with the Alliance. If they gave him that fancy leather jacket. Is he tracking her? Is that how he found her? Do they know— 

"I am—I was on assignment."

Her eyes fly to his involuntarily, surprised. She hadn't expected him to give up that much information. More importantly, she doesn't trust it, rewards it with silence.

"It's the truth," he says, cocking his head.

"Alright," she replies, deciding to humor him. "Tell me then, what business does the Alliance have in charming Mos Eisley?"

"Sorry," he shakes his head, "I can't reveal _that_ truth. I wasn't supposed to tell you the first one either." 

"Do you make a habit of breaking Rebellion secrets?" 

He ignores the question, raising an eyebrow. "We both know the entire galaxy's a battlefield. Even the more lovely planets can't be ruled out."

Why is he giving up his cards? Surely he doesn't expect her to reciprocate.

"I imagine Saw Gerrera feels the same," Cassian says after a pause, and Jyn almost faints from how forcefully she wills herself not to react. Of course he expected it. But he doesn't know. He can't know.

Breathe. She needs to breathe. "I've no idea," she manages to say. Even shrugs a shoulder. "We've parted ways."

"Oh?" She catches the slight raise of his eyebrows. "How did that happen?" 

He's good. The very picture of comfort and nonchalance, fingers drumming on his thigh, questions punctuated by a seemingly earnest, disarming head tilt. But she's good, too. 

"Sorry. Can't reveal that truth."

The corner of his mouth tilts up. Then he gestures to the air. "So what are you up to now?" 

That's it. Her cue. "Actually, I'm leaving."

He audibly exhales. “So much for a catch-up session," he says, leaning back and eyeing her.

She counters his entitled attitude with a glare. “This isn’t one. Stop acting like we're friends."

"Are we not?"

"I don't make those." She stands.

After a silence, he finally looks up. “Fair enough. Are we still on the same side, at least?" 

The words still her.  _How dare he_ , she thinks. How dare he assume otherwise when it was his side that abandoned her in the first place. Her shaking hands have clenched into fists, and the intensity of her glare makes him realize his mistake. 

"Alright look, Jalen," he says, when she's next to him, on her way out of the alley. Against her better judgment, Jyn stops—it's that damn name. And the sudden urgency in his voice. She crosses her arms and tracks the footsteps of passerby.

"You're on Tattooine, a place with barely any rebel activity, and you're getting into petty street fights outside of Chalmun's," he explains, his voice quick and matter-of-fact, but softer than she's ever heard it. "It was easy to guess that you're on your own." He pauses. "I also recognized you inside the cantina." 

"You were in Chalmun's?"

"Yes."

He makes no effort to explain, so she moves to leave.

"A contact," he sighs. "I was meeting a contact."

“If you knew I was alone, why did you ask?"

"I had to make sure."

Her confusion is adding to her anger. "What do you want from me,  _Cassian_?"

He doesn't even flinch when she turns her head to watch his reaction. Just meets her eyes. Steadily, like an arsehole.

"You're right,” he continues, the intensity increasing in his voice. “ We don't know each other. I have no idea what happened between you and Saw Gerrera, and if Jalen isn't your real name, I wouldn't be surprised. But I remember Ryloth. You've got no love for the Empire—don't even try to deny it." 

_If only you knew_ , she thinks. She says nothing.

"And you need somewhere to put it." 

A peculiar sort of dread rises in her. "You're trying to recruit me."

His silence, the steadiness of his gaze, is all the confirmation she needs.

" _No_.” It’s vehement and automatic; now she understands, and if she weren't so angry, she might laugh at the sheer, cruel irony of it all. ( _Wait here, Saw had said. She remembers thinking the provisions were too much for a day, but she had been too hungry to bring it up. He said they would return by nightfall._ )

"I'm not joining rebel ranks," she tells Cassian, the words involuntarily quiet and hoarse. She clears her throat. "I don't want any part of your blasted Alliance."

"Mine?" She hears his voice sharpen, watches his eyebrows knit. "Yes, the Partisans are separatists now, but this, this fight, was yours once. It still is." 

"No," she repeats. It's coming back and picking up speed, the storm in her head, the chaos in her bones, the hurt of it all. "I won't." 

"So you're just going to give it all up? Stop fighting?" An edge has crept into his voice, sounding suspiciously like anger.

Lah'mu. Galen, Lyra. Her stormtrooper doll from Coruscant. Her first blaster from Saw. Lyra's necklace feeling now like durasteel around her neck.

"Stop," Jyn whispers fiercely to both Cassian and the memories. Codo humming while wrapping his ankle, whispered conversations on Maia’s disgusting bunk. It is the whirr of a Stormtrooper jumpspeeder that brings her back. 

Damn his self-righteousness, Jyn decides. When she looks down, she sees him staring straight ahead, rubbing his right-hand ring finger. She ignores the twitch of her own in response. "You have no idea who I am,” she tells him spitefully. The truth he wanted, the truth he gets. "You have no idea what I fight for."

She hears him mutter her name as she walks away. She does not look back.

* * *

Tanith Ponta breaks three arms, seven noses, eleven toes, and a shin in her first week of existence. Underground, she earns the nickname "The Tiny Terror" and fights to forget.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i like to think Jyn, Han, and Chewie ran in very similar circles, hence the cameo :))) 
> 
> there are some made-up things in this chapter but also canon things, and it takes place about two years later. also i really want to write a Cassian POV of this but we'll see... 
> 
> i plan to update more frequently because now i've actually got free time! as always, comments/kudoses are greatly appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**iii. corellia**

 

If Starke makes one more offhand comment about the innate inferiority of her gender, Jyn's going to punch his balls and black his eye. At the moment, she has to content herself with tearing pieces of scrap metal and glaring daggers at the back of the smuggler's bald head, but the minute the job's done...

She meets Heera's gaze across the freighter, and the Twi'lek rolls her eyes in understanding. A strong and able fighter with a hideous knife scar running down the length of her arm and a curious penchant for song, of all the people within her Outer Rim street network, Heera is easily the closest Jyn's got to a friend. 

Which is to say, not very close at all—they've teamed up on several jobs over the past year and a half, but Jyn can count the number of details she knows for sure about Heera on one hand, not that Jyn has shared much more herself.

"Kestrel! We're landing!"

Jyn appears at their pilot's side in seconds, replicator in hand. The forged codes grant them Dock 18, and they land without complications. Jyn thinks nothing of it; in her experience, no job ever goes perfectly.

"Dawn," Starke directs her, "scout and keep trouble away from us. I'll comm if we need more manpower. Not like tiny chicks can help that much but I guess a pretty thing like you can lend moral support."

That settles it. Potential complications for her plan to beat up an moderately-influential smuggler include timing and finding off-world transport from Denab, but the satisfaction will be worth it. Besides, she's escaped worse.

Heera approaches as she's securing her truncheon on its belt loop.

"So, you're doing it?" she asks in a low voice, leaning against the freighter. 

"As soon as we get back, yeah. I've been craving a good hit." They're vague enough words, but Jyn's quiet just in case.

Heera smirks. "I'll be joining you then," she remarks, leaning down casually to fix her boot strap, mouth close to Jyn's ear. "I'm bound for Naator," she whispers, "and there's room for one more."

Naator. A Mid Rim planet with mountaincaps as high as skies and a rebel force almost as diehard as Saw's. Why there? Does she want to fight?

"Let me know," Heera says quietly, breaking Jyn's reverie. Then she's gone, having walked out of the ship to greet their contact, a greedy baffleweave merchant Jyn is all too happy to avoid this time around. 

Corellia's sun is brutal year-round, and today is no exception; harsh light and heat bombard Jyn the instant she steps off the freighter, scarf wrapped securely around her head. Diadem Square booms regardless of the weather, the cacophony of marketplace vendors and city dwellers rising easily from the streets to the spaceport above. Jyn's always liked Coronet City; it smells like fusion reactors, ship parts, and purpose, and despite a moderate Imperial presence, the city is undeniably anti-Empire, if its steady supply of grade-A Rebellion pilots is anything to go by.

The dock nearest to their left is conveniently empty, and further down, Jyn can make out a small shuttle bearing the orange and blue CEC logo. The lack of visible attendees means it's either unmanned and empty, or just about to leave, and soon enough, she hears the engine roar to life and watches as the vessel flies off. She motions appropriately to Starke, who nods, arms crossed and watching crate after crate of rare fabrics disappear into their ship.

Jyn turns to the right, continuing her patrol. Coronet's port is state-of-the-art and unnecessarily extravagant, but the architecture works to their advantage. Docks are stacked directly on top of each other while walkways have moderately high railings, making it difficult to see the business of the levels below and above. Another reason she's always liked the place.

A shuttle lands directly in front of her. The craft looks nonthreatening enough, but Jyn walks closer and surveys, pretending to stare instead at the bustling metropolis below. Three separate families emerge from the hull, carrying various amounts of luggage and trailed by their respective service droids, their heads titled up in wonder as they take in the magnificent Coronet spiral. Tourists. Jyn moves on.

Nothing particularly troublesome pops up until a small Imperial patrol vessel lands where the CEC cargo ship used to be. It's small enough, probably just stopping to refuel, but her hands have automatically reached for her comm.

"Patrol to our left," she mutters, surveying the ship. "Probably a refuel but watch out."

Eight figures exit, five of them troopers, the rest various personnel, and make their way inside the central hub. Aside from a quick glance around the spaceport, they pay no attention to their surroundings. 

Jyn starts to saunter past when another figure emerges from the craft, clad in officer garb. She resists the urge to snatch her comlink, instead proceeding on her inevitable collision course with the Imperial. Worst case scenario, she pretends to bump into him, too distracted by Coronet's urban glamour, and pulls out her scandocs, all the while muttering profuse apologies.

The officer is mere feet directly to her left when he comes to a sudden halt, and the movement causes her to turn her head. From this angle, the sunlight bares his entire face, so when she looks, she can see everything clearly. The unfamiliar clean-shaven jaw, the tan skin, the thin mouth curved into a scowl, the liquid brown eyes. 

Alliance man Cassian.

Unexpected shock courses through Jyn's body, causing her own feet to freeze as well, so she is able to watch the exact moment of recognition wash over his face. It'd actually be pretty funny if she weren't so outraged and confused.

In the same breath, he's turned around and retraced his steps, arms swinging stiffly, footfalls loud and harsh like the clobbering of her heart. With the comlink weighing her pocket down like a futile anchor and the surprise in his eyes imprinted in her head, Jyn chases after him.

* * *

  

He stands with his back to her in the middle of the ship, the officer's hat crushed in his hand. From her vantage point, she can't see anyone else inside, but she supposes she should maintain a cover. 

"I'm so sorry, sir, but do you know the way to-"

 "Drop it," he replies, turning around slowly. "We're alone." 

His face is absolutely unreadable, a slate of durasteel. Jyn just wants to pound it, break it, bombard it with explosions.

"What in the k—"

"You need to leave."

She sputters. "After some answers." 

He looks down at her, derisive and scoffing, and it takes her aback how well it fits on his face. "I owe you nothing."

"Is it revenge?" she pushes. "Did the oh-so-honorable Alliance wrong you?"

"If you don't leave now, there is nothing I can do to help you."

"Answer my questions!"

His eyes turn to stone, and his mouth thins, almost disappearing into his face. "Why do you care? I thought you didn't choose sides."

Cassian has parried two of her jabs before she realizes she's attacked him. Pinpricks of heat accompany each instance of their physical contact, but Jyn can't bring herself to stop. She doesn't know how long he manages to block and dodge her flying, anger-fueled limbs with quick, precise moves, until she realizes that he's been entirely on the defensive. 

"Fight back," she snarls. 

Suddenly his right hand grabs hers, utilizing her momentum from a previous punch to twist her arm painfully behind her. Her face is slammed against the wall of the spacecraft, his knees digging effectively into her thighs.

_This tops the list_ , Jyn thinks distantly, her back drenched in sweat, the heat of Cassian's hand almost branded on her skin, _of all their strange, impossible encounters_.

"You're vile," she whispers. 

He laughs, a sharp, cruel thing she can feel on the back of her neck. "Agreed. Now get out."

"Shouldn't you be arresting me?" she challenges.

The words hang tense and suspended until he speaks, the words almost inaudible. "I'm not who you think I am."

"Sure," she grits out, the heat building throughout her body. It's a wonder her clothes don't catch fire.

His exhale causes goosebumps to form on her skin. Finally, after what feels like hours, his head lifts. "If I told you," he says, pausing to grunt in discomfort, "that I wear masks often... would you understand?"

So what? She scoffs; a mask is her default identity, and there's no honor in it.

“Missions," he clarifies. “For the cause."

The cause? Well. She'd be lying if she said she never wondered about the nature of his Alliance work. But understanding the euphemism and believing the excuse are two separate things, and at the same time that it suddenly all makes sense to her, it's too damn perfect an excuse. 

"I don't need you to believe me," he interrupts in a whisper. "I just need you to get off the ship. Because when they come back, I'm doing whatever I can to keep this mask in place, vile things included."

With that, he releases her arms. "Don't leave me that option. Please."

She steps back toward the door, body diffusing the heat once again, sizing him up. "And if I did?" Her voice is cold. "Believe you, that is."

He mirrors the step, looks at her pointedly. "You'd be making... an intelligent choice."

Her eyes flash to his. That word was purposeful, and though it's a bit of a jump, Jyn knows. Alliance Intelligence. She's not sure she believes him entirely, but barging here _was_ a poorly thought-out plan. Her options are limited, and there's still a job going on.

Halfway down the ramp, against her better judgment, she looks back, meeting Cassian's eyes. She'd like to think he knows what's coming; her question has been years in the making, after all. "Why does it burn like that?"

The unreadable face again. If they ever run into each other again, Jyn's going to strangle him for it. "You don't know?" he asks, voice thick with something she can't place. 

"And you do?"

He stares in silence.

"You do," she gasps, sharp and involuntary, stepping forward. "Tell me,” she snarls. 

Suddenly, her comm beeps, and Starke's voice fills the room, breaking the crackling silence of the ship. "Dawn, we’re leaving in 10! Get a move on!"

"Tell me your real name," Cassian replies, glancing down at the device.

Jyn answers with a glare. "We're connected somehow, right?"

Nothing.

"Some kind of bond? And it's rare, because why else would I have never heard of it? And keep running into you?"

Jaw clenched, head shaking.

"Cassian.” The desperation in her voice is embarrassingly transparent, but she cares less than she should. 

"You won't believe me."

"Try me." 

A hand flies to his ear, where Jyn can see the white of his private in-ear comlink. "You seriously need to leave now," he says, urgency overtaking his tone, moving to push her out.

"You didn't answer me."

He spins around, grunting in frustration. Jyn watches, breath held and more than a little glad she's gotten him to break. "Come outside," she suggests. "Give a lost woman directions."

"Kriff it all," Cassian mutters, already walking out, returning the hat to his head.

His silhouette cuts a dark, daunting shape against the lightness of Coronet, and the two of them must look a sight. Fortunately, no one is around to watch them emerge from the ship. 

"I don't know a lot,” Cassian says quickly, facing himself toward the spiral when they settle on the railing. “Only whispers, because you were right. They’re rare. Those who know about them call them Force bonds.”

“The Force?” she asks, eyeing him warily. “Do you even believe in that?” 

Despite her vocalized skepticism, Lyra’s necklace hangs heavy around her neck, and the memory tugs, hazy but insistent. A whispered conversation at that cantina on Tattooine. The same night she’d last seen him.

He rubs a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I don’t really have the time to think about galactic forces trying to push two strangers together."

"Together?" Her heart is picking up speed, for whatever reason. "What are you saying?"

He gives her a resigned look. "I've heard people use the term soulmates. And then others say it's the galaxy giving a suggestion—"

The sound that escapes her is something between scoffing and choking. "You can't be serious."

"Listen, I don't—"

Abruptly, like the switch of a flip, Cassian's entire body changes, his gaze fixated on something above her shoulder.

“Then you take a left after the floating rocks plaque," he says, every trace of his Festian accent completely gone, replaced by a Coruscanti sharpness that mirrors her own. She stiffens at the sound of trooper boots thudding several meters behind her, but _Force_ does she want to keep asking questions.

Cassian's glare stops her. “Thank you very much,” she replies woodenly, inclining her head.

“Not every officer is as forthcoming as me," he says slowly. "You’d do well to learn the city, miss…?" 

A challenge? Not quite. His voice is harsh, but his eyes are open. If she doesn't want to tell him, he won't fault her.

“Jyn,” she answers after a pause, voice strong, eyes steadily finding his. She wonders if she’ll come to regret her decision. “I’ll keep your advice in mind, sir.”

He nods once and turns his nose up at her, the mask firmly back in place. "You best head out now.”

Jyn turns around, waiting with her head bowed until the troopers have passed her, forcing one foot in front of the other as she walks away. 

* * *

 

“You ever heard of Force bonds?” she asks Heera on the way back. They sit side-by-side as Jyn watches Corellia shrink though the viewport.

The Twi’lek snorts, not even looking up from toying with the replicator. “Where’d you dream up such a nonsense thing, Dawn?”

Jyn shrugs. “Some man said it today getting off a ship.” 

“Probably some Jedi fanatics or something,” Heera shrugs back. "Sounds fake to me. I mean, isn’t the Force already a bond? Through all living things or something like that?”

Jyn looks down, caressing the mark on her ring finger, her mother's last words echoing through her head.

( _Trust the Force_.) 

“Yeah,” she sighs. There's no time to think about stupid matchmaking phenomenons. She's got a smuggler to beat up and an escape to plan, another day to survive. The Force, her confusion, _Cassian_ will have to wait. “Something like that."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CEC = Corellian Engineering Corporation  
> this takes place ~2 years later. rogue one action coming soon!!! woohooo 
> 
> also i finished sense8 a week ago and goddamn a rogue one/sense8 au has overtaken my brain. help.
> 
> kudoses/comments very much appreciated. all the love to you if you're still following this! <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ROGUE ONE PEOPLE!! lots of location jumps in this bc the galaxy is great. i also added another chapter bc i'm bad at gauging plot.
> 
> lastly, thank you all so much for reading. i am absolutely floored by the response to this first fic and i swear i will have pt 2 up in the next few weeks. hope you like this.

  

 

**iv. wobani**

She’s rubbing her thumb over the mark, contemplating her imminent death, when the transport tank stops, the door explodes open, the troopers fall, and Alliance soldiers barge inside. 

“Hallik!” One of them yells out. “Liana Hallik!”

Her. They’re here for her, asking her questions, removing her shackles, and instinctively, Jyn's eyes narrow. Despite Wobani's infamous brutality, prison has done nothing to dull her senses, and she smells the trap within seconds. Her muscles tense, readying to strike. If they want her, she thinks, hitting her unexpected rescuers with her feet, her fists, and a shovel, they’re going to have to catch her.

Then the Imperial droid chokeslams the breath out of her when she jumps out the door, and Jyn has no choice but to forfeit the chase.

 

* * *

 

**yavin iv**

The general, Draven, wields her birth name like a weapon. 

"Jyn Erso," he says accusingly, his voice a knife that works its blade through her memory. It hurts quite a bit actually, but Jyn will be damned if she lets anyone see it. She fights with the only thing she has left: her silence.

That is, until Mon Mothma introduces Captain Cassian Andor of Rebel Intelligence and a familiar face emerges from the shadows, lifting himself straight from Jyn's dreams, older and more tired than she's ever seen him. Her heart proceeds to wreak havoc in her chest.

He approaches her casually, but she can see the tension in his shoulders. Then he asks, without pretense, about her father, shattering Jyn's veneer as effortlessly as he crosses his arms.

She agrees to the mission, because what else can she do? They've backed her into a corner, reopened every damn wound she's ever suffered, forced her supposed soulmate to dangle the question of not just Galen Erso's fate in front of her eyes, but Saw’s too. It's a special kind of torture she's not strong enough to resist. 

She's angry and tired, trying so hard to ignore Cassian and the flash of guilt in Mothma'a eyes, when the debrief slash interrogation finally ends. They set out for Jedha in the morning. For now, Draven assigns Jyn a room on base and has Cassian escort her there. The walk is short, all his attempts at conversation met with Jyn's stubborn silence.

The spy is insistent, though, entering the small room with her instead of leaving at the door. 

Jyn's irritation reaches a boiling point, and she breaks her silence with bared teeth. "Haven't you had enough already? Get out and leave me alone."

"Actually, this is my room--"

She groans.

"--but I'm bunking with a friend. Just needed to grab some things."

"Nothing's stopping you," she replies flatly, moving to stand against the wall.

She hears him exhale, watches his lips purse and his left hand flex. He doesn't move from his spot when he finally looks her in the eye. "Look, I'm--" 

"Don't," she interrupts sharply, stopping the apology before it escapes. "You don't mean it, so don't say it. Just leave."

"--not going to apologize."

She narrows her eyes.

He rubs his hand over his face before continuing. "I was going to offer you a drink."

She scoffs. "With you?"

"No," he shakes his head. "Just the bottle. It's been a long day. Unless--"

"Give it here."

Cassian nods and walks out, returning sometime later with a pile of clothes. At Jyn's raised eyebrow, he reaches between the garments and pulls out a bottle of ale, holding it out to her like a peace offering. 

Their fingers brush in a quick, heat-filled instant, answering the question she suspects has been stewing between them all night. She grips the bottle harder after the fact, finding his eyes already on her. 

"They were always going to find you." Cassian mutters as he grabs his things from drawers.

And just like that, he ruins it. The alcohol turns even more bitter in her mouth, and she bristles. "I bet you were a real help with the effort," she spits at him, the peace offering forgotten.

"And if I was?" he asks sharply, his eyebrows knit, a challenge in his voice. "You couldn't hide forever. Not with your ties."

He's making her sound like she's guilty of colluding with Imperials, with the man who left her, and her blood boils. "I haven't seen my father since he abandoned us for the Empire!" she lashes out.

He looks at her, confused. "I didn't mean--" 

"It doesn't matter what you meant. I'd rather die than join the Empire."

"And when you broke with Saw? When you chose to stop fighting?"

She wants to laugh at how wrong his intel is. "Saw Guerrera," she reveals slowly, "left me in a bunker with a blaster and some rations when I was sixteen and never came back. I was his best soldier."

Cassian stills. Of course he didn't know. "Is that why you walked away that day on Tattooine?"

She remembers. Knees bent, feet apart on the steps of a clay doorway, trying to stave off the anger and the shock that had followed his recruitment offer. "Would you want to be taken back by the same person who tossed you aside?" 

She holds his gaze until he breaks away and gathers the rest of his belongings in silence. Inwardly, she grapples with a decision. 

Just before he clears the doorway, she takes another swig and goes for it. "Do they know?" she asks curtly.

He freezes. "No." 

She finds that impossible to believe.

"I've asked Mothma questions," he continues, "because she knows others... like us.  Draven knows it won't affect my field work. But neither of them know about you.

"Why not?” She asks, ignoring the spike of her heartbeat.

Infuriatingly, he ignores the question. "You have a mark, right?" he asks instead. 

They've never addressed this before. It takes her by surprise, but she manages a nod. 

"Where?" 

"Left hand, ring finger," she replies. "Yours?" 

"Right hand." 

She isn't surprised.

He turns away then, standing briefly in the doorway with his shoulders hunched. In that moment, inexplicably, he reminds her of Saw, and if only for a second, she feels like a young girl again, surrounded by secrets and unanswered questions. As Cassian walks out, she shakes the feeling off.

"Goodnight, Jyn."

It's the first time she's ever heard him say her name. He drops it low and casual, making the consonants soft and lilting and stunning her into silence. 

By the time her own voice recovers, Cassian Andor is long gone.

 

* * *

   

**jedha**

They keep touching. A brush of the arm here, a hand on her shoulder there. Cassian had even grabbed her waist to prevent her from fighting two strangers who had the gall to shove her. The roughness of his grip had sent spikes of heat through her side. 

 It's disorienting enough to be irritating and to make matters worse, Cassian seems wholly unaffected. Blasted spies. 

Jyn grits her teeth and balls her fists. When the tank explodes, she fires her blaster and lunges for the crying child. When Cassian saves her life, she ignores the swoop of her stomach and marches on. When the Partisans catch them, she reveals her name, uses her most threatening and commanding voice to ensure an audience with their leader. If Cassian can compartmentalize that well, she can, too.

\---- 

Of course, everything goes to shit when she sees Saw.  

The attack in the market was familiar territory, the sounds of blaster fire and exploding debris pounding a rhythm similar to her own heartbeat. A game she knew well, albeit with different players.

This reunion, however, is an entirely different battle, and though she’s dreamt of the scenario for years, Jyn finds her throat drying up, her hands sweating as she's led to Saw.

When her foster father turns around, he unleashes a storm, a chaos within her that she tried so hard to expend and dissipate years ago. She feels sixteen again, all fists and teeth and bone, unraveling like the thread on her gloves. Saw's derelict form, more machine than man, and the sadness that colors his voice at her apathy doesn't help matters. 

"You can stand to see Imperial flags reign across the galaxy?" he asks, his voice a tired, wheezing thing. She can hear him bracing for impact.

"It's not a problem if you don't look up," she tells him honestly, bitterly, but guilt and doubt seep into an answer that used to offer relatively painless bliss. 

Then Galen Erso rips the world out from under her, and in hologram-form, no less. Her father, the traitor, says her name like no one ever has, wistful and loving and apologetic all at the same time, and when Jyn reaches desperately for that familiar, destructive anger, she comes up empty. Galen Erso, with his strong voice and sad eyes and words about love and lies and family and Death Stars, leaves her with nothing but "Stardust" and tears she forgot she had, disappearingcruelly into a backdrop of trembling ground.

It's then that Cassian suddenly appears, his lips moving fast but inaudible, his voice drowned out by a roaring inside her head that won't recede. 

He takes her hand, sending a bolt of heat into her fingers and through her arm. It brings her back enough to see his eyes, understand his words.

"I know where your father is."

Alive. Galen Erso is alive.

Somewhere past the paralyzing shock of the last ten minutes, somewhere encoded deep within her being, Jyn understands that if she wants to stay alive too, wants to ever see her father again, she needs to move. Her legs tremble like the ground, but Cassian's grip is hot and strong. She stands with him.

"Save the dream!" Saw bellows, his voice a mere fraction of its former glory. Jyn runs, abandoning him and shoving the pain away, like an afterthought, with sore, exhausted hands. Out of the ruins, to the ship. The world crumbles, so close to her fingertips in the viewport, and when Cassian punches the hyperdrive, filling the space with the flickering white and blue of lightspeed, darkness overtakes the hold. Her, Cassian, a droid, and three strangers cloaked in a seemingly all-consuming blackness. Jyn's never felt anything like it before.

 

* * *

 

**hyperspace**

He doesn’t trust her. Cassian doesn't trust her or her father's message, and the disappointment, the betrayal that tries to claw its way out of her throat takes her completely by surprise. 

"I believe her," Chirrut had said then, his voice a welcome balm over her still raw wounds. She caught Baze's subtle nod and Bodhi's grimace-smile hybrid, but Cassian's frown still remains unshakeable. 

A small part of her understands; he didn't see the message, he doesn't know her father, he's a spy who needs hard evidence. But this is the Death Star, and why would her father lie about something as big as that?

"Set course for Eadu," the man in question had directed K2.

Eadu. Where her father has been alive all these years, toiling in solitude. Galen Erso, who got his wife killed and abandoned his daughter, who lied for years and lit a fuse inside his greatest, most abominable creation.

Most of the ride is spent in silence, and Cassian doesn't look at her, doesn't speak to her for all of it. He looks like he did that day on Corellia, his frowning face tormented and conflicted. Her ring finger twitches.

She's too exhausted for anything besides a promise. He doesn’t trust her, she has to admit, but her mouth tastes bitter, not angry. Her previous words to Saw echo throughout her bones; she doesn't mean them now, and she suspects that she never has. They've always been a survival mechanism, not that it excuses her past inaction --  in fact, deep in the back of her mind she thinks this might even be the galaxy's way of offering atonement. She'll make Cassian see that she's grabbing it with both hands, make him understand that she's returning to the fight.

And even more importantly, that her father has never left.

Her hands return to the necklace. He doesn't trust her. But he will.

 

* * *

 

**eadu**

"Does he look like a killer?”

"No. He has the face of a friend.”

"The Force moves darkly near a creature that's about to kill."

“His weapon _was_ in the sniper configuration."

She's out of the ship in seconds, the dread submerging her alongside Eadu's relentless downpour. It all makes sense now. Why he wouldn't talk to her after Jedha, why he stole guilty glances on the trip here, why he made her wait inside the ship under the guise of being the messenger.

Cassian's going to kill her father.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

**v. hyperspace**

 

Galen Erso is dead. 

Galen Erso is dead, and the man who killed him stands a mere five feet away, shrugging off his soaked jacket and shelving his rifle. Each sound echoes across the ship and jars her a little—he does it so harshly, so callously, and he has no right.

Someone grabs her hand suddenly, and she looks up into Chirrut's unseeing eyes. He squeezes, and she turns around, confronts her soulmate.

“You lied to me.”

Cassian looks over dismissively, mouth twisted in an ugly scowl. “You’re in shock.”

The  _nerve_. “You lied about why we came here, and why you got off the ship,” she says, shoving the truth in his obstinate face.

He finally looks at her. “I had every chance to pull the trigger, but did I? Did I?”

“You might as well have,” she spits. "Those were Alliance bombs that killed him!"

“I had orders! Orders that I disobeyed!”

“Orders? When you know they’re wrong?” Jyn scoffs. Doesn’t he know he’s talking to a soldier? He’ll get no mercy from her. “You might as well be a stormtrooper.”

It hits exactly where she wants, as his eyes, usually so blank and guarded, blaze in anger.

"What do you know?” he nearly yells, moving towards her. “We don’t all have the luxury of deciding when and where we want to care about something! I've been in this fight since I was six years old!"

“I was eight when the Empire killed my mother,” she returns, unsympathetic.

“Oh? Sorry to hear that," he snarls back. "Where have you been that entire time? Avenging her death?”

“Have you forgotten how we me—“

“And after Saw Guerrera left you?”

She stills.

“What do you know about loyalty and discipline?” he whispers savagely, his face dizzyingly close.

“Don’t you dare. I lost everything because of this--”

“You are  _far_  from the only one,” Cassian interrupts stonily, his eyes colder than Jyn has ever seen them. “Some of us live this Rebellion. Some of us die. Some of us have had to make tough, ugly choices. But we have never left."

His words slowly leech away her anger. She can see, as she sees his shoulders sag, the truth in them.

But still.

“You think that justifies your actions? Those orders were rash and wrong and you killed a good man,” Jyn spits out, driving the last of her waning anger towards him. "You can’t talk your way around this.”

“I don’t have to,” Cassian replies. 

His gaze is unrelenting, and the silence stretches on, their faces so close that she feels it. The burn, the pull. But they do not touch. 

In the end she doesn’t know who breaks their standstill first, but suddenly he’s gone and she’s freezing, except for the burning of the mark on her finger. The rest of the hold avoids her eyes as she searches for a blanket.

 

\---

 

The corner alcove in which she has taken refuge offers no respite from the chill. Hyperspace streaks the corners of her vision white and blue, and in her head, the events of the past twelve hours echo incessantly, mercilessly. Jyn closes her eyes. A mistake, she finds out too late. The voices only get louder.

“You can stand,” Saw whispers, seeming above her shoulder, “to see Imperial flags reign across the galaxy?”

_I used to_ , she desperately wants to scream in reply.  _And you taught me how._  

But Saw Guerrera dissolves too quickly into Jedhan dust.

“I assume logically, rationally, that you fight with the Rebellion,” Papa says next, appearing in the black of her eyelids. His posture is tortured and crumbling, but his voice is kind and fills her skull. The shame builds, reaches her throat, threatens to spill over. If only he had known.

The pilot. Bodhi. “He said I could make it right. If I was brave enough to listen to what was in my heart.” 

Cassian Andor, angry. “We never left.” And she’s angry, too, and she won’t let it go, but it leads her back around in a terrible, exhausting circle. To Krennic, to Saw, to Galen, and—

Inevitably, the past catches up. Lyra Erso appears, and Jyn stares at the righteous anger in her mother’s eyes as she cries, “You’ll never win!”

“We call it the Death Star.”

Lyra falls.

Jyn wants, impossibly, to reach out and catch her. Instead, she clutches her necklace and opens wet, sticky eyes.

_They won’t win, Mama_.

Jyn swipes the unshed tears away. She doesn’t know about the Rebellion, she doesn’t know about Cassian Andor. But she knows the Death Star. And if nothing else in her life, she’ll see this through.

 

 

* * *

 

**yavin iv**

 

“They prefer to surrender,” she tells Chirrut woodenly.

“And you?” Baze asks.

What does it matter? She doesn't want to answer, for fear her voice betrays the true extent of her disappointment.

Chirrut, thank the Force, is strong enough to utter the words. "She wants to fight."

As it turns out, they all do, and the resolve in their faces brings Jyn that much closer to either laughing or crying. "I'm not sure four of us is quite enough," she manages to say.

"How many do we need?" Baze asks.

"What are you talking about?"

She turns and finds herself face-to-face, once again, with Cassian Andor. Behind him, a large group of Alliance soldiers eye her warily, and Jyn tenses, instinctively readying herself for a fight.

Instead, Cassian take a single step forward and complicates her life yet again, turning the dread that floods her veins into something infinitely more confusing. 

"I believe you," he tells her in an earnest and broken voice, and Jyn can only listen as he confesses his sins, as he offers up his assembled crew of fellow sinners to steal the Death Star plans alongside her. It’s the very last thing she expects from her father’s killer, from her soulmate. Like on Jedha, she reaches for that familiar anger only to come up woefully short. 

After the crowd breaks, Cassian approaches her, offering up a faint smile that looks equal parts anguished and relieved. It's  _exactly_  how she feels, and as he leans in and welcomes her home, Jyn leans back, remembering a boy on Ryloth with his hand outstretched. When  _Rogue One_  enters hyperspace, she watches the soldiers and Cassian and rubs her soulmark in thought.

 

 

* * *

 

**scarif**

 

He’s heavy and their physical contact adds even more heat to her exhausted body, but they've done it. They've transmitted the plans, and he saved her from Krennic, and right now, her main concern is getting him down to the beach. Everything else ranks second. The Death Star looms hauntingly, a faint grey circle surrounded by a sea of blue sky that disappears when she and Cassian board the elevator.

"Before I forget," he mutters, shifting and grunting in pain, “Here.” His right hand slowly, painfully comes up, and she takes it, examines his skin as gently as she can. Right there, on his ring finger, the raised white mark is an exact inverse of her own.

Her thumb brushes the spot, earning a sharp inhale from Cassian.

“Sorry,” she says quickly, but when she looks up, he’s shaking his head.

“It didn’t hurt. Don’t worry.”

His eyes are soft and open as she rips off her glove and places her hand in his. “Find mine.”

When he does, the touch sends a surprising jolt of heat through her arm, and Jyn allows herself to return his sad, loaded gaze and mourn all the questions about Cassian Andor she’ll never get answers to.

“I’m glad you came,” she tells him, unflinching and honest.

He squeezes her hand in reply. “Your father would have been proud of you."

His invocation of Galen causes no anger. Not even when the doors open and she watches the Death Star’s green beam pierce Scarif's beautiful, underserving surface. The sand crunches beneath her boots as she guides Cassian towards the shore, slow and stumbling, but steady. There’s a faint roaring sound behind her she knows to be an engine, and she waits for its inevitable crash.

Except it only gets louder. Closer.

They duck at the same time, and instinctively, she shields his body with hers. But the pain of blaster fire never comes. Instead, she hears voices.

“Jyn!  _Jyn_!  _Cassian_!”

And it's not a stormtrooper or Imperial guards but Bodhi Rook, the pilot,  _their_  pilot, screaming at them to hurry up.

Impossibly, in spite of Cassian's broken ribs and the unbearable heat between their bodies, they board the cargo ship. Someone hauls her up, and Jyn has just enough time to think,  _Another survivor_ , before the burn of the Force bond renders her unconscious and her durasteel grip on Cassian falls away.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // SURPRISE BITCH bet you thought you'd seen the last of me //
> 
> real life is a fucking savage, but there's one more chap left and it WILL go up.
> 
> as always, all the love to you still reading/scrolling/commenting/whatever-ing <333


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